Disappointed. If the news is confirmed, it will mean that he follows the money rather than anything else.
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Maybe it’s the only job offer to come his way
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To be fair, he’s got no chance of a PL job, so his choice is between building a promotion winning team from the Championship on a shoestring, or this kind of big bucks showbiz payday. We’d all like to think we’d take the noble path, but we won’t ever be in that position.
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Things you don’t want to see. Stevie agrees to be used as a muppet in Sports Washing.
Lampards record at his first stint at Chelsea was much worse than Gerrards at Villa. I’m sure Gerrard could have been a top candidate at some of the ‘smaller’ PL clubs soon.
I’m genuinely suprised he didn’t walk into the Inter Miami job to be honest.
Well that’s honestly not what anyone was expecting.
Stevie is the 15th manager there since 2015. 
Wonder what his transfer budget is
Maybe like Lumpithard, SG has got an eye on the England Managers job at some point… Putting the Saudi connection on his CV might actually work in his favour… or maybe the likes of Gary Mac and others from SG entourage will welcome the big pay day this work will bring them
What a knob.
Taking that job doesn’t help him in his managerial career at all.
It’s like Kenny sitting in the dugout for our Legends games.
Doubt he’ll ever get a chance at the big PL clubs now.
Probably given up on it anyway.
2 years big money in Saudi. 2 years good money in MLS and then full time pundit.
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Next week then?
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agreed…he wont get it tomorrow…or without improving…but my point was, if his next role was competitive and another stepping stone, then there is a redemption arc avaliable to him.
after failing at Villa, if he goes o the novelty league, its hard to see a way back
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What, work a short period, hit some early stage struggles, and get turfed with a massive payout?
He’s not managing Spurs, you know.
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I actually thought you were describing 2022-23 Everton there for a moment.
Agent Gerrard has a decent ring to it.
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It’s very questionable though how much the time in Saudi contributed to that and it certainly wasn’t his success there that landed him the Barca job.
He still has plenty of time to learn, but this is not the move of a person who seems interested in doing the work necessary to be good enough to succeed in those big jobs he has spoken about wanting.
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Problem is if he struggles here there will be even less names interested in him.
Rafa went to China because genuinely was the only job offer available.
Surprised he hasn’t been asked back by some, I suppose Leicester may have tried had they stayed up.
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Honestly, being a manager is pretty shit. You have to be really in love with football to do it, or just lost for lack of anything else to do. The hours are awful, you’re away from your family all the time and you get dogs abuse non-stop. He could well have decided it isnt really for him and gone and taken easy money for something that isnt really important to him.
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It is, I find it a rather odd choice. To be fair to Carragher and Neville you can’t really blame them for going straight to the studio.
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I would imagine that at the outset Stevie had it all loosely mapped out, at least in the back of his mind.
- Get experience coaching the kids at Liverpool.
- Get a big job in Scotland. Win. Progress.
- Get a job in the Prem. Win. Progress.
- Get a big job in the Prem. Win. Progress.
- Manage Liverpool.
It went tits up at stage three.
That’s not to say he won’t come again, and get to stage four or five, but it gets that much harder. So what is he supposed to do in the meantime?
It’s easy to judge from my armchair, but I don’t know what offers he has. As someone pointed out above, a stint in the Middle East didn’t do Xavi too much harm with regard to his coaching prospects.
Finally, let’s all think about our own careers, whatever path we took. We started out and maybe it went well. For some of us, maybe it continued to go well and all we knew was bigger and better, more money, more responsibility, each step of the way.
But I suspect that for most, a career doesn’t go like that. You start out doing this, but end up doing that. It’s not all advancement and plain sailing. Sometimes you have a setback and you have to regroup. Perhaps this is Stevie’s regroup phase?
Or it could just be the money, the experience, then come back and be a pundit. It’s hard to tell.
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FIFY
Celtic job is available 